It's been more than a week since I've returned but this is my first chance to reflect on this conference. I am so glad we went. It was affirming for the work we are doing as yoga therapists.
There is a lot to consider here. This conference was about conducting research on the benefits of yoga as well as sharing the results of research already conducted. The conference was full of people with advanced degrees; scientists, therapists, psychologists, etc. It was super cerebral. It felt great to be gathered with this caliber of people. No perfectly matching yoga outfits, no super model types, no hip-hop yoga- as you typically find at some major yoga magazine sponsored "conferences". These were people who probably had on average 15-20 years of yoga experience and were here to ask some important questions about the field of yoga and yoga therapy. This was the first formal gathering of its kind or of its size. More than 850 people attended. This seemed to be just a little too much for The Hilton, who's workers were on strike and picketing out front the whole weekend. These strikers must have been surprised when several conference attendees picked up signs and joined them. Not being terribly fond of Paris or her antics to begin with, this labor dispute over fair wages quite easily put me into a mind set of consciously avoiding giving the Hilton my business ever again.
The questions posed were: What is yoga therapy? What is the difference between a yoga teacher and a yoga therapist? What are the specific training requirements of a yoga therapist? All difficult to pin down, the last one tends to be a bit of a hot topic. Among the presenters were several notable founders of various schools of yoga therapy. Each one has a different set of standards and practices that they feel are essential for a yoga therapist. The fact that they do not match says a great deal about the subjectivity of yoga.
Is there any benefit to applying reductionist science to a holistic and integrative system for right living? I just read a great article in the NYT magazine about "nutritionism". The author, Michael Pollan, made an excellent case for the breaking down of food into nutrients and trying to extract those nutrients and base our diet on parts instead of whole food leading to insane rates of diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Check out his article, Unhappy Meals.
MAGAZINE | January 28, 2007
Unhappy Meals
By MICHAEL POLLAN
Thirty years of nutritional science has made Americans sicker, fatter and less well nourished. A plea for a return to plain old food.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html?ex=1170651600&en=8fd0f76806b0baa2&ei=5070&emc=eta1
It is much like what is happening here with yoga. It can't really be separated out. It is a way of life, a science of living. Western science likes to sanitize things. To pick out one measurable thing and apply clinical trials on it and then make some statement. Life doesn't really work that way. It seems neat and tidy. People like proof. But I don't think that is really the way it is. Life's too mysterious to be categorized and analyzed.
I come from a research background. My degree in Child Psychology is a B.S. Other than being fun to say, it stands for bachelor of science rather than bachelor of art (B.A.). That means that rather than taking tests to assess my understanding of concepts and ideas, I was handing in research results. I would watch children through one-way glass ticking their behaviors on clipboards and applying statistical equations to find out exactly what they were up to. It absolutely fascinated me. I get a rush when anybody starts talking about research. Before the Universe sent me to Chicago, I was in the process of applying for graduate school at the University of Minnesota. They are quite hip to complimentary medicine and are the only university of this caliber that has a graduate minor in Complementary Therapies and Healing Practices. The U of M is involved with the Children's Hospital -the first hospital in the country to have an entire clinic devoted to complementary medicine for children. I was lucky enough to be a yoga therapist there. They called me! Yeowza. See, now I am getting all excited about it again.
I think we, as a group of 'alternative' professionals, need to very seriously consider the value in aligning ourselves with a medical model that is reductionist and disease focused. Much of the talk over the weekend was about health care reimbursement. Hmm. I will, out of the good grace my mother taught me, refrain from my comments and opinions about the American health care system and rather quote someone I was delighted to meet at this SYTAR, Leslie Kaminoff. He said in a recent article written for IAYT, aligning ourselves with the current health care system is akin to handcuffing ourselves to the Titanic.
It is my deeply held conviction -aside from or because of or in addition to my love of research - that our current health care system and methods of scientific research are not evolved or advanced to the point of being able to measure this state of awareness called yoga. Yes, it can reduce back pain. Yes, it does reduce symptoms from myriad conditions ranging from asthma to AIDS. How or why? Do we need to be able to chart it on a graph? Can we just trust and be grateful and continue to refine our ability to listen quietly and act from within? What is to be gained by compartmentalizing and reducing and analyzing? To whom must we prove ourselves? Medical doctors? Insurance companies? Ourselves and each other?
I see/believe/feel/trust/experience that we are at the threshold of a paradigm shift. Consciousness is evolving and the way in which we have operated and measured will soon be no longer valid. This has already happened many times in history. What was thought to be matter has now been proved to be energy. This took more sophisticated tools and thinking. It was always true, we just didn't know how to measure it.
There is much more to say about the fascinating people who were there and what they had to say, but enough for tonight....
